A fic I meant to write for Halloween, but of course I'm late. Well, I wrote it anyway! Very unserious in every way. Happy Belated Halloween everyone.

Inspired by the cover art to this fic, which is from the Tales of Link game. Please, look at it, it beautiful.

She was very fascinated with his cape. "Isn't this heavy?" Colette asked curiously.

"Nah." Lloyd stayed seated on the leaf-covered ground, where the markings of occult circles were still pretty apparent, even if the stones to mark said circle were now messed up. "Things don't feel that heavy anymore actually. But it is kind of a pain when I drag it around in the summer. It gets so hot…"

The moonlight was bright, trying in vain to light up the forest's darkness. Either way, it was a nice night, all thing's considered. A raven cawed in the distance, taking Colette's attention for a moment.

"Hey, uh," Lloyd scratched at his hair and grinned, his fangs bright but lacking the maliciousness of other vampires. "Sorry you got stood up."

"Oh! No, it's okay! Just…" Colette sighed a bit. Her bat-like wings fluttered as she once again tried to see through the tree's branches, that maybe a stray occultist was just coming up the stone-marked path into the heart of the forest. "I never get summoned, so I was hoping this would be my big chance!" She curled her fists in determination, blue eyes fierce. "And then do what I was meant to do!"

For a demon hailing from hell, she was pretty cute, Lloyd thought. One tends to meet a lot of people after three centuries of forced living, but he'd definitely never met a devil-girl like Colette. Then again, he hadn't come upon demons all too often. Maybe all demons were like this?

"What are you meant to do?" he asked.

"Um… I'm not sure yet!" A tinny laugh left her throat, while a hand absently patted one of her horns. "They said I would know once I got here…"

"Did they just do a bad job of summoning you?"

"I don't know really? I was pretty confused! I thought they were trying to summon another friend of mine, but I guess they were just mispronouncing my name… And it's a pretty easy spell, I thought."

She shrugged, the wind tugging at her long, blonde hair. It was bright against the night's shadows, unlike the rest of her outfit. Decked out in a black, frilly dress, its waist outlayed with a lacy skirt, including black and stylish stockings, she looked more like a serving maid from one of those café's than a personal servant of the underworld. Her clothes were even patterned with hearts on the lower parts of her dress, complete with a little bow tie that was pinned on her front.

Honestly, the only reason Lloyd could identify her as a demon at first was because of those tell-tale horns atop her cranium, her small wings, and her thin tail (that had a heart-shaped end to it as well). And such additions barely made much of an impression on her. He had at first thought she was just some girl wearing a costume – who also liked to travel through the dark forests past midnight.

"I'm glad you came by though! You're very kind to stay with me while I wait." She hovered near him, her demonic wings holding her aloft easily.

Lloyd leaned back against a tree. "Oh, yeah, it's no problem! Waiting by yourself can kinda suck."

At that, she giggled again, confusing him. She noticed his expression. "Sorry! When you said that, I just thought of…" She gestured to his face, or, more specifically…

Oh, right. The teeth thing. After so long, he still couldn't get used to it all that much.

"I'm sorry, did I upset you? I didn't mean to!"

"Nah, don't apologize. Just, I usually have to hide this kind of thing."

"But, um, why do you wear the cape if you're trying to hide…?"

Lloyd looked to the side. "Eh, my friend is making me wear it for today. Said I should live up to my nature or something." He paused. "Then he said we should go to the woods even though there's usually no people around, so yeah, I'm not really understanding his logic here."

"Your friend sounds really funny!"

"I guess." Lloyd's smile was weak. "Kinda gets old after a couple of decades."

"Aw, but you're still best friends, I bet! He's also a vampire?"

"Not exactly…."

Colette had floated back down to him, black dress shoes crushing the fallen leaves. She was very easy to talk to, luckily. It had just been chance that he had come across her, looking lost as she stood within the summoning circle, almost unsure if it was allowed for her to leave the confines of the interconnecting lines of stone with no one near.

"How'd you become one anyway?"

"Become what? A vampire?"

"Yeah!" She shivered slightly, one hand gripping her other arm. She may have been wearing dark gloves as well, but that dress still looked a bit flimsy on the material side.

"Hey, you cold?" Huh, he thought demons would have been exempt to that.

"Oh, it's nothing!" She shivered again. "I haven't been out here before, so I didn't think it'd be chilly. I thought about bringing my jacket but I was in a rush…"

"Here." Lloyd stood up, unclasping his black cape to drape over her shoulders. "There! It's a pretty thick cape, so you should be good!"

Colette blinked at the unexpected charity. Her small hands grasped at its sides, pulling it to her chest. "Wow! Thank you!"

"Hehe." Lloyd had his hands on his hips, feeling quite proud of himself. "I like the cold more than the heat, so you can have that for now if you want. I actually own a couple of other sets at home."

"You're… you're really nice." Colette smiled at him, so bright and infectious to make his own grin go wide. Still holding onto his cape, she seated herself on a fallen log, her tail waving behind her merrily. "Hm, your other clothes don't really match it."

Well, he couldn't exactly deny that. "I know, but I really like this outfit." He seated himself next to her, knowing that he probably stood out like a sore red thumb against the dark landscape. "My dad made this for me way back, before the whole, uh, vampire thing." He scratched at his head, then sudden realization hit him. "Oh, right! You wanted to know how I turned into one?"

"Only if you're okay with telling it." Still, he could tell she was excited, with the way she looked at him expectantly. Her eyes were quite bright, but not in a way to make him want to turn away. The opposite, actually.

"Okay, well, it all started when I started exploring this old rundown castle," he started, trying to set up the mood of the story. "It was the middle of the night, and haunted, and I was off to find the hidden treasure!"

Colette was already enraptured. "Why so late at night?"

"Hm, well it wasn't actually my idea to go at first." Here was where he frowned. "My friend made me."

"Oh, so he wanted to find the treasure?"

"Nah, he said he promised to meet some girl there for some reason." Shrug. "I'm not sure why he wanted me along, something about some other girl for me which I didn't really care about, but then I found out about the treasure, so I figured I could look around the place while he was busy doing whatever."

"That sounds scary though…"

"Oh, but you know what the scariest part was?"

"What?"

"Turns out that girl was a vampire!"

Colette gasped. There was no way she could have seen that coming. "Oh no! So that's how…"

"Yeah." Lloyd sighed wistfully. "Thanks to my friend, I now have an unsatiable hunger for blood for the rest of my immortal life… On the plus side though, I get to stay up as late as I want!"

"That's pretty good!" Colette's knees bounced as she imagined what must have been Lloyd's exciting life. "Back home, I still have to follow rules about that kind of stuff…"

"Wow, demons have a bedtime?"

"Mm, not so much. I mean, we don't really need to sleep! But we do have to meet with our boss demons and all… and it does get pretty exhausting."

"Aw, yeah that's no fun."

"So your friend. He also became a vampire, right?"

"Actually… he didn't."

"Oh! So he escaped while you didn't?"

"Nah, I mean he tried to." Yeah, he could vividly imagine the guy trying to hightail it out of the castle while Lloyd was pinned down by a blood-sucking lady. Yeah, that hadn't been any fun. "But he got turned also by the other girl there."

"Into what?"

And then, right on cue, a long plaintive howl echoed through the woods.

Lloyd jutted a thumb over his shoulder. "Into that."

Someone stumbled out of the bushes to fall on his face. Said someone recovered immediately.

"Hey, Bud!"

"Hey, Zelos," Lloyd deadpanned, not looking at him.

Colette remained curious as the man called Zelos stood up on his legs – when before she had seen him leap out of the darkness with four. He scratched behind his ear vigorously, sharp canines gritted as he did so. After a bit, Zelos finally seemed to notice his friend was sitting next to a cute girl – which was cause to be a world shocker.

"Whoa, Lloyd! How long you've been hiding her from me?"

"I didn't-"

Immediately, Zelos knelt on one knee before Colette, winking at her. Between his sharp teeth was a rose, his furry tail wagging excitedly. Where'd he even get that rose? This forest was so dead of any actual flowers. "Hey there, demon hunny. What are you doing in these neck of the woods?"

"Um." Colette smiled nervously. "Just, um, doing stuff!"

"Stuff, huh?" Zelos eyed Lloyd. "Heh, you sly dog, you!"

"Look who's talking."

Zelos didn't take any offense to that little jab. "Glad to see some of my charm has finally rubbed off on ya. Showed her the teeth, right? Told you the ladies can't resist a guy with an animal side."

"I'm not the one that gets fleas though."

"Okay, there's teasing, and then there's just flat out stereotyping, bud. You know I'm sensitive to that stuff!"

"Meh."

Colette finally fit the pieces together. "You're a werewolf!"

Zelos winked at her, that rose now mysteriously gone. "That's right, my sweet she-devil. Zelos Wilder of the wild side." Lloyd groaned. "Guess you could say I'm top dog around here."

"Okay, that gets really old after the 732nd time you've said that."

"What, you been counting?"

"Yes," Lloyd replied, sighing.

Colette looked super excited then, her blue eyes sparkling. "I really like your tail! It's so cute."

Before she even finished her compliment, Zelos' tail thumped against the ground as he sat. "Yeah, cutie. Like my ears, too? All the better to hear you with, right?" Which were, of course, wolf ears that stuck out from his head, almost too big and monstrous.

Colette smiled widely at the sight. "Yeah! They look really fluffy!"

"Wanna test out how fluffy they are?"

"Don't get weird, Zelos."

"Man, don't be such a buzzkill! After not properly introducing me to your girl here."

"We just met. Her name's Colette. And I thought you were busy hunting tonight or something!"

"Yeah, unlike some people here, I commit myself to my work. Also, you know I can only eat raw meat now, like seriously. What about you? When are you gonna actually hunt down some ladies for their sweet elixir of life-"

"Stop." Lloyd physically pushed Zelos away, one hand over his face. "I don't like turning people, you know that."

"So you don't bite people?" Colette was just learning all sorts of stuff tonight! "But I thought vampires needed to."

"Well, actually one of my old professors super helped me out with that! There's like these medical centers or something that have like blood banks! So I just-"

"Basically, Lloyd's being lame and just takes little juice boxes full of blood everywhere." Zelos reached out, pulling out one such juice (blood?) box from his pockets. "See?"

"H-hey! Give it back!" Lloyd grabbed the box out of his friend's hand, frowning.

"And that's not important right now! Look, look, Lloyd, you know there's different types of demons, right?"

"Uhhhh."

Zelos turned to Colette, who flinched back in reflex. She clutched Lloyd's cape more tightly around her. "So, Colette, bet I can guess what you are~"

"Really?" Now she was intrigued. "Oh, there's so many different classes of us. I'm not even sure I know them all…"

Zelos scanned her form in a much too obvious manner, humming as his eyes trailed all over her, one clawed hand on his chin. Lloyd had the sudden urge to smack his head, but did his best to restrain himself. Did he really have to look at her like-

"I got it!" Zelos snapped his fingers, then leered at Colette. "Those alluring stockings, that inviting dress. Heh, you're a succubus, aren't you~?"

Colette visibly pondered on that word, pushing at it with difficulty. "Um. Hm. A what?"

"A succubus! The most beautiful demons of the underworld?"

Lloyd had to interrupt. "A what?"

Zelos groaned. "Bud, don't kill the moment."

"A suck-u-bus?" Colette tapped her foot. "It sounds familiar, but I can't really remember what it means!"

The hope from Zelos' eyes were rapidly fading away. "Come on, you could just play along-"

"A demon that sucks? Like blood?" Lloyd turned to Colette with a smile. "Hey, that's pretty neat!"

"I don't think I'm one, or am I? Maybe it's something that I was meant to do... Oh! Lloyd, you could probably teach me!"

"Guys." Zelos held out his hands to them both, frowning in extreme disappointment. He looked so tired. "Please, stop this, guys. Stop. You two are destroying me with your ignorance, it's physically painful. Just… just forget it." He sighed the sigh of a lonely, suffering man. "Can't have any fun."

Lloyd's expression was bare of any sympathy whatsoever. "Maybe if you stop taking about weird stuff once in a while."

"You know, I get the feeling you're still mad at me from way back then. Come on! It's been so long! Sorry for helping you get eternal youth and all that."

"Yeah, sure Zelos. I'm not at all resentful of the fact that because of you my soul is forever damned to the pits of hell and I can never know peace." Pause. "I mean, all things considered, at least I lost a lot of weight." Another pause. "Man, I miss food."

"You can still eat food."

"Yeah, but I don't need it like I used to. That's like, a huge difference."

"Least you don't need to hunt deer for 80% of your life. Speaking of which." Zelos hopped to his feet, sniffing the air. "I'm starving. But you better call for me right away if anything happens!"

"Uh." Lloyd tilted his head. "Like what?"

"Don't be so thick-headed. A succubus! Remember?"

"You still didn't really explain-"

"Agh, forget it!" Zelos then leapt away into the shadows of the trees. Before he fully did so, his form changed, curving inwards, lowering himself more to the ground. "Just be smart about it for once!" The voice was barely Zelos either, lowering in pitch and running through gravel. Quick footsteps bounded away in the distance, accompanied by a low howl.

"Oh yeah, it's a full moon tonight," Lloyd said. "Otherwise, he would've hung around us the whole time. Can't really control his hunger when it's like this."

"Aw, well he does seem nice though!" She played with the hem of Lloyd's cape, liking the soft material, barring her against the wind. It even had a little clasp in the shape of a doggy! One with big ears, black eyes, and painted with what looked like stripes of green fur. "There probably is a lot of nice people in this world... I wish I could visit it more often."

Lloyd looked at her, then up to the sky, where the moon was big and looming. He heard the distant skittering sounds of bats from far off, which was normal. They seemed to follow him wherever he went. "You've never really been here before, yeah?"

"No. It's actually my first time being summoned, and now my summoner isn't even here…

"So you have to go back now?" He couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed at that.

"Hm, usually my summoner would make me go back after I did my job. At least, that's supposed to happen, I think. But since they're not here, I'm not sure what to do."

"But then, that means you stay here then for as long as you want?"

Colette scratched her cheek, thinking. "Maybe? I would probably need to ask when I get back."

"I dunno, but I think that sounds like a loophole if I ever heard one. Because no one's ordering you around, you can do what you want out here."

The way she smiled at him then, he knew that was just what she was hoping to hear! "Really? I mean, I hope so. I wouldn't want to get in trouble."

"Just tell them your summoner messed up!" Lloyd stood up, offering her a hand. "In the meantime, why don't I just show you around? I can even take you to meet my dad if you want."

"Wow, you're dad's still alive?"

"Yeah, well he's a dwarf and they live for a really long time, so I'm just pretty lucky."

Looking at his hand, Colette clasped it gently, letting him pull her to her feet. Her devil-tail wound behind her with content. "Thank you so much. I'd love to meet your father and all your friends!"

"Heh, yeah we rarely get visitors now because of the whole, uh, vampire thing so I bet he'll be really happy! Just a warning that my dog might get scared of you at first, but he's nice."

"You have a dog?" Colette gripped his hand tightly, bouncing on her feet, his cape on her shoulders bouncing with her.

"Yeah, you like dogs, too?"

"They're my favorite! There's this dog, Cerberus, back home which I take care of everyday! Most other demons don't get that his three heads like different kinds of food, so I'm usually feeding him."

"Sounds cool!" The wind blew fiercely, reminding him that it was time to go. "We'd probably get around faster if we fly? You mind?"

"Not at all!" She slipped off his cape, freeing her small wings, stretching them to help lift her in the air. "I won't be able to wear this in the meantime."

"That's fine. I'm actually gonna need this… Hey, wanna see something neat?"

Colette nodded, then Lloyd twirled the cape around himself, dragging up the leaves in the rush of air. For a brief moment, the cape covered his form completely, until he seemed to vanish. The demon blinked, finding a small bat rising up into the air.

"Wow!" Colette flew after him, laughing in the meantime. "Hey, our wings match!"

Bat-Lloyd squeaked out something in response, sounding akin to enthusiastic agreement.

Both soon flew out of the forest, also known as the cursed woods where monsters, witches, and demons congregated. Seeing her fly beside him, he hoped her visit here would be a long one.

Or that at least the person who summoned her would keep doing so, and messing up, often.

An hour later, two long-robed individuals walked down the stone-marked path.

"Genis, you should know by now the difference between a demon-summoning spell and an elemental one."

The young warlock looked up sulkily from his black hood. "Sis, this wouldn't have been a problem if you didn't keep getting your potions all over my scrolls."

"I told you the risks of my experimentations, and that to keep our spell-scrolls separate!" The witch named Raine thumped her staff into the carpet of dead leaves, her wide-brimmed witch hat shadowing her eyes. It did not serve well to shadow her silver-bound hair unfortunately, making her as bright as a quicksilver dragon in the dark. "You should hope that nothing went too awry in your ritual, or otherwise-"

Both magic-users looked at the summoning circle, seeing the stones disturbed greatly, as if several people had trampled over it.

"…Otherwise, your summonee might be set loose upon the world."

"I could've sworn I inscribed a bounding rune to it though!" Genis opened a leather-bound volume that he held in his small palms. "Ugh, there's so much residue from your eye of newts in here, I can barely read chapter 3!"

"Blaming me will not fix your mistakes." She whispered an incantation, the red globe atop her staff lighting the dark with a lurid red. She also skimmed through her own spellbook. "Do you even know what kind of demon you may have incontrovertibly summoned?"

"…Lemme check. I was trying to summon a dark sylph, so it must be somewhere in the S section…"

Suddenly, a frantic yelp broke them out of their studies. They looked up, seeing what looked to be a werewolf rush right past them, glowing yellow eyes wide in fear.

Chasing right after the monster was another, this one in the shape of a woman, ghostly in her form, long hair floating from her head as if she were underwater. Her mouth was wide open as she shrieked at the werewolf.

"Sheena, calm down! I- I didn't know that fox thing was your pet and I was hungry! Ahh!"

The ghost woman's screams far overrode his own. Both were soon lost to sight within the forest trees, leaving Genis and Raine standing there in confusion.

"Uh, what was that?" asked the witch's little brother.

Turning over the pages of her book, Raine found her answer. "A violent demonic banshee." She shrugged. "They're quite common around here."

The moon continued to rise high, accompanied by a terrified howl. Just another regular night in these cursed woods.